12 songs San Diego's mayor played on the radio Sunday night

San Diego Mayor Bob Filner spun music and stories into gold on local radio station KPRI-FM 102.1 Sunday night.

It was an entertaining hour, though Filner didn't drop any Talking Heads like Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs did the week before him, or play any Nirvana like TV personality Loren Nancarrow did to kick off the station's guest disc jockey series in February.

Filner squeezed a dozen songs in between as many anecdotes, including one story about how Carole King sang one of her standards in his presence for Cuban President Fidel Castro. He also revealed that he and his fiancee Bronwyn Ingram have a song, and joked that Ringo Starr is a "little better" at drumming.

All but one of the songs Filner played were recorded during a 13-year window from 1959 to 1972. The exception? The tune from 2006 that he and Ingram adopted.

"Music has always defined us," Filner said. "We can remember exactly where we were when we hear a certain song or certain songs remind us of some good times, hopefully, and maybe some sad songs. But music is always there. I've been involved in political events where music is important and we'll play some of that today. I guess some of your romantic life is always connected with your favorite songs, and certainly what's happening in America at a certain time is connected with the music."

Without further ado, here are Filner's songs and his comments about each. At the end of this post, you'll find a way to hear the entire set list on Spotify and our question of the day: What song(s) would you play if you took over local radio? Answer below or on social media and you might make Tuesday's front page.

Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water

"I happened to go to high school in New York City, and a class ahead of me was Simon and Garfunkel, so that's my claim to fame, I guess," the 20-year congressman quipped. "Before they were Simon and Garfunkel in the late '50s, they were Tom and Jerry. And they used to play at our assemblies. And you'll never believe this, but Simon and Garfunkel had crew cuts, flat tops. They wore white bucks and they did some of these dances we called the Lindy or the Jitterbug and they had, I think, a No. 5 song in all of the metropolitan New York area, and that made them really cool among all the high school kids, so we knew them as Tom and Jerry. Later when they had all this hair and they were singing songs that were a little bit, I don't know, more at a higher level maybe, we couldn't believe it was Simon and Garfunkel. But it reminds me certainly of my high school years and as we move from the '50s into the '60s, and that's what Simon and Garfunkel, I think, represent for America."

Carole King's You've Got A Friend

Filner said he met and bonded with singer/songwriter Carole King on a trip to Cuba with congressmen who were going to meet President Fidel Castro. He said he "had her sing" "You've Got A Friend" for Castro as a symbol.

"In fact, I have a picture of me listening to Carole King as she was singing it," he said. "It was just sort of a symbol of the time that we were trying to reach a friendship that had been blocked from our nation for many, many years. I don't think it helped either the people of Cuba or the people of the United States that we had this longtime embargo on. But it was a way to say that we were trying to break through politics into a more interesting and personal relationship. Music always does that."

Mahalia Jackson's We Shall Overcome

Filner had this to say about his oft-discussed time as a teenage Freedom Rider during the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s:

"Whenever we were at our lowest, we would turn to song, turn to the so-called freedom songs, many from the African-American church originally, many of the gospel songs, and they were put into new lyrics, whether it was 'Which Side Are You On?' or 'We Shall Overcome.' These songs gave us tremendous amount of bonding and courage to face what was going on. I remember once I had just been arrested in Jackson, Miss., and I was called, I think I was the youngest one in jail, and they called me in to meet with the police chief. And I didn't know what was going to happen. I thought I might be beaten up, I might be, who knows? And as I was walking to his office, I heard in the back all my fellow Freedom Riders singing 'We Shall Overcome.' And it just gave me enough courage to face that police chief. He said, 'You know you're not having a good time here, and all those other leaders like Dr. King and others, are walking around New York and having good meals. Don't you want to go home?' And I said, 'No sir,' and went back to my cell. But it was the music, it was the music that gave me the courage to keep going."

Michael Bublé's Everything

"Many people know I'm engaged to a young lady from Los Angeles named Bronwyn Ingram. As you know, couples tend to get their favorite songs together, to enjoy music together. She was a fan of Michael Bublé so I of course became a fan of Michael Bublé. So when we first heard the song, 'You Are My Everything,' that's the song that we sort of adopted as our song. So we play that all the time, and obviously it means a lot to us, and each couple has their own songs, but Michael Bublé says it for us."

James Taylor's You've Got A Friend

Filner introduced this song, which King wrote for James Taylor, saying, "I can't listen to James Taylor without thinking of that trip with Carole King and the way songwriters and singers relate to each other, how there's that relationship between the two and how they need each other actually to succeed in this strange business of show business."

Frank Sinatra's My Way

"People know that I do it my way, and I have, I think, a position of leadership, which I try to use to involve people from all our neighborhoods in the decision-making process of government, but when I listen to Frank Sinatra sing 'My Way,' it's more than just a beautiful song, more than just about personality or personal impulses. It's about my sense of the way I do politics. So when I listen, as we've listened to 'My Way,' it's more than just a personal story, it's about really the way I'm looking at politics. Thank you Frank Sinatra for all the songs you've done for us."

The Beatles' A Hard Day's Night

"For most of us who grew up during the '60s, The Beatles were our heroes, our defining characteristics, the sense of freedom that they imparted, the sense that they were going to do, if I can use Frank Sinatra's wording, it their way, without regard to some of the traditions. The Beatles represented for the '60s, I think, a lot of what people were sensing as they were growing up. Their music was incredibly complex, and their ability on their instruments was incredible, but most of us just loved the style. When you saw the movie 'Help,' or what was their first one? ... 'A Hard Day's Night.' I got some help from the studio here. 'A Hard Day's Night.' It was just such an irreverent kind of movie with these young guys prancing around and saying what they wanted to say. They made you feel like you were part of a whole new movement in America.

"Interestingly enough, before The Beatles first came to the United States, when they were first on the Ed Sullivan Show, my father who was doing business in Europe came back one day and said, 'I saw this group in London and I think they were from Liverpool, something called The Beatles or something. They all had haircuts just like you.' That is, I had already been wearing the longer hair that became sort of the symbol of college kids that day. And so I got introduced to The Beatles first because they looked like me. And there's a certain resemblance between Ringo and me, although he's a little better drummer. Uh, so The Beatles were for those of us who grew up then a real symbol of the times, and we saw it in a political sense, too, that we were throwing off traditional ways of doing things. The Civil Rights movement in which I participated, the anti-war movement. We were challenging the way things were done, the way things had come to be, the standard way of doing things, and The Beatles represented a departure, as did Elvis by the way, six or seven years earlier, but The Beatles were really a symbol for our whole generation."

John Denver's Rocky Mountain High

"OK, John Denver is a little change in pace certainly from The Beatles or James Taylor or Simon and Garfunkel, but I think for a lot of people he represented more of an outdoors America, that we celebrate the beauty of America, that we celebrate the kind of both environmental incredibility that we have here and the sights that we have to see, and the wild west or the open west. And we want to bring that I guess John Denver sense back to San Diego in terms of a walkable, bikable San Diego. That's what I want to do as mayor, to change our neighborhoods in a way that we can walk and bike and enjoy our city a lot more in the way John Denver sort of symbolized to enjoy America. That is, we need a bike infrastructure. It's hard to bike anywhere in San Diego. We don't have the bike lanes. We don't have the separation from the cars. We don't have ways to get across freeway entrances. And we're going to try to do that in San Diego in a whole number of ways. We're going to bring consultants from different cities who have built those cities, like Portland, Ore., into great biking centers."

The Kingston Trio's M.T.A.

"The Kingston Trio showed the power of folk music and showed the simplicity of some of the songs, but they had deep meaning, and people really enjoyed them. Turns out San Diego has a connection with The Kingston Trio, one of them married a resident here in San Diego. She became Leslie Reynolds. He recently passed away, but we have that connection between the past and the present right here in San Diego with The Kingston Trio."

Cat Stevens' Morning Has Broken

"We started every day with that song, and it sort of became the theme song of how we try to relate to each other in a new day, and I thought that was a great vision at San Diego State. I still have wonderful friends from my time of teaching at State, and there were always people trying to form a community there. It's a hard institution to have a community. You know, there's 35,000 students. They're commuting to campus. They're working at jobs while also trying to get their degrees. But for me, Cat Stevens and that song represents a time of coming together, of making a community out of wherever you are."

The Shirelles' Will You Love Me Tomorrow

"For many of us, our idyllic years were at college. I went to Cornell University, both as an undergraduate and as a graduate. But in the early '60s, when you'd get out of class and go over to the student union and have a cup of coffee, or a, I guess we were allowed to drink beer at that time, I'm not sure, but you were in the student union, and there were girls you had a crush on, or relationships that you had, and for me, the Shirelles represent that era. And I think Carole King wrote this song, 'Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow.' It's a plaintive song that talks about, you know, well, we're having a good time now, but we're always a little worried whether that relationship will last, or how long we'll be together. And the Shirelles always represented to me a great sort of relationship, but a little bit of fear, I guess, that that relationship might not always hold up. The Shirelles. 'Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow.' Of course, that's what I always ask the voters of San Diego, too."

The Beach Boys' California Girls

"I came out to California 40 years ago. I lived in New York, had never been west of the Mississippi. But when you heard The Beach Boys, you had this vision of California and what it meant. I don't know. The freedom, the ocean, the blue skies, the girls. I mean, all those came out in The Beach Boys. That said it all. So most of us wanted to come out to California and so I migrated here to teach at San Diego State. Most of us had the sense that we didn't know what California was, and when you heard The Beach Boys, that's where you wanted to be."

For those who prefer their music all in one place: Here is Filner's 12-song playlist on Spotify. (You'll note one of the songs is a cover. Or maybe you won't.)

Now let us know: What song(s) would you play if you took over local radio? Share yours on social media or below.